It ’s been a practiced few weeks for DSLRs . Just afterNikon ’s D90became the first ever to jump into the sweet , sweet H2O of the HD video puddle , Canon did a gigantic cannonball today with theEOS 5D Mk II , upping the secret plan to full 1080p captures at 30fps . The head that all of this good news lend up is : Why now ? Why have n’t the DSLRs we ’ve been using for years ever been capable to grab video clip like their tawdry air pocket - Cam River chum ? rent ’s take a spirit at the roadblocks that have stood in the way of the DSLR video recording rotation , and why Canon , Nikon and others are only just now begin to Bigfoot right over them . Processing : The biggest challenge to sweep over is also the most vague and nebular , and is the one part of digital cameras most of us never think about . Processing is each manufacturer ’s secret sauce ( that ’s why we never get wind a MHz number or any other eyeglasses ) . It ’s where a immense portion of the engineering dollars go to - and where most of the patent of invention amount from . The data floor out by a DSLR ’s large sensor is a great deal to drink - orders of order of magnitude more than what even the baddest compendious digicam can process into video . So for instance , according to Canon ’s foresighted - time camera tech guru Chuck Westfall , the 5D Mk II ’s Digic IV processor must take the 21MP , full - systema skeletale sensor data and downsample it by 10x to 1920 x 1080 and compress it into MPEG4 encryption - and it has to do that 30 time each second . That ’s a lot of central processor power , and Canon and Nikon both only just got there , with Digic IV and Expeed , respectively . Auto Focus : If you ’ve used live view on a Nikon or Canon DSLR , you know that auto stress happens differently . That ’s because with the mirror flipped up and the shutter open , the epithelial duct is clear up to grant light from the crystalline lens to stream onto the main image sensing element , bypass the freestanding AF detector used for still images . It ’s the same for a DSLR in TV mode - on the 5D Mk II , the camera uses a separate contrast - based scheme to set apart focus points ( or it can also essay facial recognition using dividing line , both of which put even more mental strain on our well acquaintance the processor ) , and it takes several seconds for focus to change if it needs to ( in some mode you must attribute the new stress point manually using the photographic camera ’s jog dial ) . While you may not point out or care about shifting automobile nidus during picture on a compact camera , when a DSLR ’s more antiphonal and sensitive depth - of - field is factor in , direction is more important . The majors are just now locking all of this down enough to the point of usability - and they still have a ways to go . Of course , you could always concentre manually , but render cause a major manufacturer to put that cold sentence in a PR pamphlet . Sony and Olympus have used an groundbreaking two - sensor setup to leave live purview without the AF problem . However , Olympus has go away from that model and now only uses one sensor , presumably to curve down on cost and complexity . Nobody has used the second image sensor to dump the unrecorded perspective provender to video recording , probably because the turnout would not be of usable timbre . detector : Everything change when instead of the fraction of a second of exposure for a still range , a detector has to nourish constant cognitive process to snap up a video . When it ’s entrance twinkle continuously a sensor heats up , and estrus = randomness = shitty looking images . Today ’s DSLRCMOS sensors(which handle heat and interference better , in the main , thanCCDs ) are just now getting to the levels of low power expenditure and efficiency to not turn into little mini - griddles when recording a video . canyon has only produced one CCD television camera in its account ( the first , the 1D ) , and Nikon has been CMOS on the top destruction - but there ’s a reason the mid - range TV - capable D90 has moved to CMOS from its D80 predeccesor ’s CCD , and why most manufacturers are head in that guidance . Olympus uses what they call LiveMOS ( or NMOS ) and may very well be implementing video recording soon on its E - serial cameras . Image Quality : When you bribe a DSLR , you need everything that comes out of it to be of substantially better quality than what you could get with the compact digital it ’s likely replacing . That ’s why the first DSLR moving-picture show modes we ’ve reckon from the biggies are all touting HD quality - if they had really want to , someone could have found a way to press video out of a DSLR before now - but for all of the reasons above , it would n’t have looked much ( if any ) better than what compacts have been purge directly to YouTube for class . And while the major want you to love your unexampled “ prosumer ” position , they ’re also quite happy to have you carry on patronise for a succinct photographic camera to back it up . But now , the more interesting overlap is not DSLRs vs. point and shoot , it ’s DSLRs and digital camcorders . We ’ll have a Giz Explains on “ should I even consider buying a digical camcorder again ” quick when that becomes an actual world . Special thanks to Chuck Westfall from Canon for help us out . Something you still wanna hump ? Send any questions about touch , feel or sort to[email protected ] , with “ Giz Explains ” in the subject line .
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